. . . And A New Test For Mayor Washington

October 08, 1987|By Bill McKersie. Bill McKersie is a program officer for The Joyce Foundation, Chicago. He recently served on a developmental committee of the Mayor`s Education Summit.

Now that the teachers` strike has ended, the quality of Mayor Harold Washington`s leadership will be severely tested. Can he use the strike as a turning point for the Chicago public schools? Or will he sit by as the board and union return to their past practices?

The history of labor relations tells us that long strikes are filled with misery, but that they also can fuel change. Clearly, change is needed in our public schools, but it will occur only if aggressively pursued by the mayor. Many reforms are needed, but two issues are most pressing: improving long-term relations between the Chicago Teachers Union and Board of Education, and addressing the growing clamor for decentralization of the school system.

On the first issue, the CTU and school board need to communicate productively and work on improving the schools. The union and the board need to be brought into the 21st Century of labor-management relations, an age when labor and management attempt to address jointly both wages and an improved product. The recent negotiations between the United Auto Workers and Ford Motor Co. provide a private-sector example; recent teacher contracts settled in Miami, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Hammond, Ind., and Rochester, N.Y., provide public-sector examples. Legitimate change in the schools depends on the union and the board, but there is little evidence that they have found a means for enacting reforms that will help students learn better.

Mayor Washington can break this stalemate. A powerful personality is required to pull the two sides together and mediate as they develop reforms that reflect the needs and concerns of parents and community members. The role of mediator might not be filled best by the mayor, but he must take the lead in activating the process, selecting a mediator respected by both parties and holding all involved accountable if a satisfactory result is not forthcoming. The second issue, decentralization, obviously is intertwined with the first one. However, the growing movement to decentralize authority in the school system to the subdistrict or school level demands that it receive attention as a separate issue-and soon. Before the strike, groups and individuals were advocating various decentralization models. The strike has brought this to a head: In a city of strong neighborhoods, the organizing cry is now decentralize.

Decentralization is not a panacea; it is unclear that it will alleviate the major problems in our schools, or which form would be best. Unfortunately, with the growing public furor, it is likely that the General Assembly will find the political clout to dump an ill-conceived decentralization plan on the city. So it is critical that within the next several weeks Mayor Washington take firm leadership on school system decentralization. He must assemble the primary advocates and experts on the matter-including community and parent representation-and start the hard process of forging an effective

decentralization model. His proposed decentralization commission might be a step in this direction. But unless it is designed to develop a detailed plan quickly, it will be seen as more talk and not a sincere attempt to address the problem.

The greatest irony surrounding Chicago`s public education crisis is that this city has the range and wealth of resources necessary for effective reform. Chicago is home to two of the finest urban education research and advocacy groups in the nation, Designs for Change and Chicago Panel for Public School Policy and Finance. The city also contains good-quality private and public higher education institutions.

Although the local economy is in transition, the corporate and financial community is quite strong. The city`s philanthropies are numerous and looking for direction vis-a-vis the public schools. Chicago is based on neighborhoods with a unique level of community organizations and organizers. Finally, for all their problems, the public schools contain many committed and talented educators. Focusing these disparate resources is a challenge, but it is a necessary step toward improving the schools.

No major U.S. city has been able to address the failings of public education adequately. In the aftermath of the strike, Mayor Washington has an opportunity to list school reform as one of his greatest achievements, or one of his most notable failures.